My thoughts on defense.

08/07/2016

Today, August 7th, 2016, is Purple Heart Day

August 7th is the halfway point of Summer. It is also the anniversary of the First Marine Division landing on Guadalcanal, in 1942. And the anniversary of Imperial Germany invading France, in 1914.

On August 7th, 1782, General George Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart. The award was originally created "for military merit", and indeed the reverse of the medal carries that inscription. The award was resurrected in 1932, by the efforts of Generals Charles Summerall and Douglas MacArthur, Chiefs of Staff of the Army between 1927 and 1936. An interesting history from the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Army regulations’ eligibility criteria for the award included: • Those in possession of a Meritorious Service Citation Certificate issued by the Commander-in Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. (The Certificates had to be exchanged for the Purple Heart.) • Those authorized by Army regulations to wear wound chevrons. (These men also had to apply for the new award.) The newly reintroduced Purple Heart was not intended primarily as an award for those wounded in action -- the “wound chevron” worn by a soldier on his sleeve already fulfilled that purpose.

Establishing the Meritorious Service Citation as a qualification for receiving the Purple Heart was very much in keeping with General Washington’s original intent for the award. However, authorizing the award in exchange for “wound chevrons” established the now familiar association of the award with injuries sustained in battle. This was reinforced by Army regulations, which stated that the award required a "singularly meritorious act of extraordinary fidelity service" and that "a wound which necessitates treatment by a medical officer and which is received in action with an enemy, may, in the judgment of the commander authorized to make the award, be construed as resulting from a singularly meritorious act of essential service."

Until Executive Order 9277 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in December 1942 authorized award of the Purple Heart to personnel from all of the military services (retroactive to December 7, 1941), the medal was exclusively an Army award. The Executive Order also stated that the Purple Heart was to be awarded to persons who “are wounded in action against an enemy of the United States, or as a result of an act of such enemy, provided such would necessitate treatment by a medical officer.”

In November 1952, President Harry S. Truman issued an Executive Order extending eligibility for the award to April 5, 1917, to coincide with the eligibility dates for Army personnel. President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11016 in April 1962 that further extended eligibility to "any civilian national of the United States, who while serving under competent authority in any capacity with an armed force…, has been, or may hereafter be, wounded" and authorized posthumous award of the medal.

Executive Order 12464 signed by President Ronald Reagan in February 1984, authorized award of the Purple Heart as a result of terrorist attacks or while serving as part of a peacekeeping force subsequent to March 28, 1973. The 1998 National Defense Authorization Act removed civilians from the list of personnel eligible for the medal.

Given yesterday's anniversary, and all those who decry from the safety of seven decades of time Truman's decision to use two atomic weapons to end the war with Japan, the Purple Heart carries another sobering bit of history. In July of 1945, the War Department ordered the minting of 500,000 Purple Hearts in anticipation of the casualties for Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Japanese home island of Kyushu. Of course, the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about an end to the war, and the invasion of Kyushu (and then Honshu) proved mercifully unnecessary.

Since 1945, every Purple Heart awarded for the Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and all the skirmishes in between has come from that minting for the invasion of Japan. More than one hundred thousand remain unissued.

Comments

I dunno whether this is in the regs or was just field/command SOP in granting the award, but I thought one had to have blood drawn in order to qualify for the award. I say this because by Father's jeep hit a land mine in Germany, killed his driver, severely wounded his radio operator and 50 cal gunner and threw him out of the jeep with a severe concussion. But the award was denied for him as his ear-drums weren't pierced and no blood was drawn tho the wound required a lengthy stay in a field hospital.

At first my Dad said he was mildly pissed about not getting the award for what he thought was a valid combat wound, but then thought of his dead driver and the radio operator whose face was permanently disfigured when he was thrown into the radio and he said that "considering the alternative" he'd take a pass. lol